RobotBlogger

So yeah, cockroaches. Big ones. We found this guy in the hallway outside. Every time i see one, i say out loud: 'Cuuuuute!' hoping that i can displace my dislike of large insects. I guess it's working a little bit.

These guys run fast. I don't really mind them that much if they're dead or just standing there, but they get pretty creepy when they move. VERY fast runners, and quite 'aware', zipping down pathways and turning corners appropriately. Blech.

So, here's the rundown on cockroaches, because you all know i love stats:
- 3,500 different species of cockroach. That's a lot. 6 main classes.
- Fossil records of them going back over 350 million years - that's before the dinosaurs.
- The largest cockroach in the world is called the 'Rhinoceros Cockroach' and only lives in, you guessed it, Queensland Australia. Honestly, i just found this out right now, after i started writing this entry.
- The largest ever cockroach was the Apthoroblattina, long gone and a good thing too: it was 50cm (20 inches) long. Crikey.
- Cocky-rochas can live a month without food and hold it's breath for 45 minutes
- Radiation tolerance: Yes cockroaches are pretty radiation tolerant. Here's why: Radiation effects cells when they divide, thus chemotherapy for cancer - nuke the dividing cells. Since cockroaches only molt every week or so, their cells are mostly radiation resistant between these times. This makes them able to handle radiation 6-15 times higher than a human ex-KGB informant can. They've got nothing on some wasps though, which can handle 150 times the human lethal limit.

Some early middle eastern writings suggested using ground up cockroaches for "gynaecological disorders". That sounds really fun.

Here's one for the "Well, that's freaking crazy" category: Cockroaches make group decisions. That's right, they actually have a democratic 'society', each roach counting as a single vote in the group's decision-making process.

Here's a quote:
"Some Belgian scientists took 50 of the humble Blattella germanica and put them in a tank that had three little cockroach huts, each of which could hold 40 cockroaches. The roaches divided themselves up perfectly into two groups of 25 each, and left the third hut vacant. When the researchers repeated the experiment so that it had three huts with a capacity of 50 each, all the cockroaches assembled in a single hut, and left the other two vacant."
More info

Commie cockroaches, i like it. You know, it seems like every week there's another interesting study on animal intelligence/'intelligence'

Stay tuned for a blog on Alex and Griffin, the African Grey parrots who you can have a conversation with, and the cheeky Kea mountain parrot of New Zealand - which is probably the smartest bird on the planet. African Greys and the alpine Kea are as smart as a human 3 year old, possibly even smarter than chimps.